This weekend I went to Las Vegas as a prep for one of the coolest opportunities ever – I am going to be a co-host of the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon on Labor Day weekend (go to their website, mdausa.org for info on your local channel). Here’s the catch: Tom Bergeron and I are handling the 12pm – 8am shift! Ha!! Ed McMahon and Jerry have the prime-time shift, Tom and I definitely don’t have the seniority there, so we’re happy working the graveyard stint. Tom and I were at dinner discussing different methods to be the 5am exhaustion. He had plenty of advice to share, and since he’s done it a couple years now, I think we’ll be cool (dear Caffine, please don't let me down! love, Ali). Tom is definitely a crack-up, and of course, I had to tell him how much I love AFV. That show kills me. And frankly, since my own experience with embarrassing-moments-caught-on-video, I don’t feel so badly laughing at other people falling down. But Dave and I definitely had to share a ‘look’ as we were sitting down to dinner with Jerry, Tom, and Ed starts sharing Johnny Carson stories… we were like ‘who are we?’ how did we get here?! So crazy!!! Anyway, the telethon is 20 hours long – scheduled, from Sunday through Monday afternoon on Labor Day, I hope you check it out (and CALL IN to support the cause!) The Muppets are going to be there (and yeah, I am TOTALLY excited about that. Dave suggested we Tivo it too for when ben’s just a little older, the my-mom-met-the-muppets factor.)

As many of you know, there has been a behind-the-scenes ‘shake up’ at Days. I had to email Melody (Thomas Scott, Y&R) to tell her how much we LOVE her husband. Ed is such an awesome Leader. He has shaped up the show in every area… it’s still the Days you love, but it’s a tighter, more powerful way of telling stories. I think you’ll see a clear difference when his first episode airs. Everyone is so enthusiastic right now, and motivated to go above and beyond – but who wouldn’t be inspired by a man who runs everywhere? Ed seriously runs (I think Steve (Steve) mentioned his orange sneakers?) yeah, Ed runs to and from the booth all day. And by all day, I mean, literally from 6:45am until we wrap the show, sometimes 11:30 or 12pm. You hear him coming, and you know he’s going to tweak the scene, make it better, make everyone look better. Dee (Marlena) and Kristian (Hope) and I were chatting after our scenes last week about how fantastic the sets look, the lighting…we can’t wait for his stuff to start airing, because we know you’re all going to love what you see.

Have I mentioned how cute the movie ‘Cars’ is? Well, let me just tell you, any movie you can watch/listen to, 956 times, and still laugh, is one heck of a good movie. And we don’t even let Ben watch that much tv… but, ALL he will watch is Cars. “Mater, mommy?” “race cars, mommy?” that’s the only thing he wants to see. And what’s best about this particular movie is that there aren’t any really scary parts that I have to ff past. The whole thing is just adorable, funny and clever. So I happily give Pixar 2 thumbs up for a movie I now know better than they do.